Church of All Saints

This is a parish church dating from the 1849-50s, built in the Early English style. It comprises an aisleless nave and a lower chancel, with a south porch and a west front added during that period. The church is constructed of squared, grey Silurian slate-shale, with large quarry-faced blocks forming the base, tooled masonry above to the sill course, and smooth facing above. Bath stone is used for the east window tracery and in the porch. The steep slate roofs are finished with coped gables and a cross on the chancel.

The four-bay nave has a windowless first bay, with lancet windows in the remaining bays, separated by stepped buttresses. A moulded sill course and a moulded course, linking the hoodmoulds, run between the buttresses. The chancel has no windows on its sides; its east end features diagonal buttresses, a sill course, and a stepped triplet window with linked hoodmoulds continuing into a stepped string course, topped by a quatrefoil. The west front, dating from 1849-50 and built of a different stone, includes two lancets flanking a large central buttress that supports a tall, slim octagonal spire of intricate design. The buttress is an example of High Victorian architecture, exhibiting solid geometric shapes that subtly merge to create the spirelet. The upper part of the spire has a squat bell stage with eight small cusped bell-lights, leading to a steep octagonal stone spire with four tiny lucarnes. A memorial sun-dial to John Morgan, dated 1858, is situated on a southeast buttress on the south side. The south porch has a pointed, flat-chamfered arch with compound piers, a moulded course below the gable, and gable coping with a cross finial. It has a cusped rafter roof and trefoiled lights in its side walls. The south door is a pointed arch with roll and fillet mouldings, and Early English responds.

Inside, the church has plastered walls and a relatively austere feel. The nave has a surprisingly low-pitched roof of a late 15th-century type, featuring three tie-beam trusses with wall-posts and arched braces supported on corbels. A west bell tower protrudes into the nave, with corbelled upper parts and a flat-headed opening at ground level. The chancel is more ornate, displaying fine ashlar Early English detail modeled on Salisbury Cathedral: it contains an ashlar altar with cusped panels, a full-width panelled reredos, a blind arcade of seven bays with pointed arches, column shafts, and moulded capitals. A roll-moulded sill course sits over the reredos, beneath the stepped triple lancet east window, which is also shafted with moulded arches. The chancel roof is steeply pitched with oak mock hammerbeam trusses and pendants.

The church contains oak pews with curved bench ends. The west windows have stained glass by C. Evans & Co, dated 1888. Five nave windows are by Celtic Studios, dating from the 1950s and later, with a sixth window dating from 1938 by C.C. Powell. There is an oak hexagonal pulpit from 1839-40 with plain panelling and stick baluster stairs, and an oak eagle lectern. Four exceptional, ornate Gothic Revival metal chandeliers, each with twelve branches and a crocketted octagonal ogee-topped centre shaft, are also present. A low screen from 1839-40 consists of short lengths of oak rail each side with cusped balustrading. The richly coloured east window glass is from the 1850s, likely by Wailes. The altar rail is of plain oak. Chancel wall tablets commemorate M.D., G.G., and I. Williams of Cwmcynfelin.